Physical Healing in a Lucid Dream?  

For years, Annie suffered from painful plantar warts on her feet. Each step brought a sharp reminder of the troublesome warts, and made walking miserable. Then one night, as if by magic, the pain ended. Realizing that she dreamed, Annie seized the opportunity and lucidly sought to heal herself.

In her dream report, she wrote:

“I think of my feet because they are hurting me as I walk…. Then I remember I can heal my feet (in a lucid dream). At that moment, all of the surrounding room drops away to a black void where I sit. I recall using a ball of white light as I had been visualizing (before going to sleep). Sure enough it appears around my hands. I put my hands on my feet – first, the right one. The light enters the foot and glows golden from within. I hold it there for several seconds and then move to the left foot. Same process. I put both feet down and realize I had done what I had incubated. It seems amazing and terrifying. That feeling is so intense I woke up.”

The morning after this lucid dream, she looked at her feet. Overnight, all six of the plantar warts turned black! Within ten days, they all fell off. By all appearances, her healing intent in the lucid dream has worked wonders.

The ability to lucid dream, or become consciously aware in the dream state, gained scientific validity through the pioneering work of researchers, like Stephen LaBerge at Stanford and Keith Hearne at the University of Hull in the 1970s. Recently, German psychologist Ursula Voss and others, using sophisticated 19-channel EEG recordings, tracked lucid dreamers aware in the dream state and identified lucid dreaming as “a hybrid state of consciousness” with unique neurological features.

Currently, some psychotherapists teach lucid dreaming to clients with recurring nightmares from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to heal emotional wounds. Once lucidly aware in the nightmare, clients have achieved success in altering the emotion’s power and ending the nightmares. But physical healing in a lucid dream?

In my recent book, Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self (Moment Point Press, 2009), I report that experienced lucid dreamers have intended physical healings while lucid with positive results. In the dozen examples of successful lucid dream healings, patterns emerged of exactly how lucid dreamers approach healing and procure results.

When consciously aware in a lucid dream, you seem ideally situated for a healing experience. In the subconscious of the dream, you can focus healing intent to the ailment without waking distractions. Additionally, dreaming allows for a wide range of creative actions, such as placing healing hands inside your dream body or receiving inner advice.

Many lucid dreamers report surprise as healing light spontaneously shoots from their hands or fingers onto the troubled area. In other cases, they empower their hands with healing energy, and touch the area in need of healing. In my book, I found the greatest success comes when the lucid dreamer acts directly in the lucid dream, instead of waiting for healing from an external source, like a “dream doctor” or potion.

Lucid dreamer Ed Kellogg, Ph.D., has performed much of the research investigating lucid dream healing, after using lucid dreaming to heal an infected tonsil in 1989 with “dramatic improvement.” Since that time, he has presented on lucid healing at the International Association for the Study of Dreams conferences, providing accounts of lucid dream healings on pain, infections, inflammation, bronchitis, scar tissue and more [visit dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/ed_kellogg.html].

Kellogg notes that anecdotal evidence can “point the way towards more rigorous investigations” to uncover the variables and techniques leading to successful lucid healings. Moreover, he envisions “lucid dream healing may become one of the more accepted and practical applications of lucid dream research.”

Since publishing my book, I have received enthusiastic messages from other lucid dreamers who used it to heal phobias, migraines, PTSD nightmares and anxiety. As the word spreads of lucid dreaming’s healing potential, many more lucid dreamers will experiment, and new stories will emerge.

In Annie’s case, she first tried visualizing the warts away. After months of waking visualizations, she felt frustrated by the lack of improvement. Yet after one lucid dream with focused healing intent, the desired results appeared overnight.

Scientific evidence for lucid dreaming has existed for thirty years. But the real potential of lucid dreaming, particularly as an alternative healing modality, deserves fresh attention.